Collated and Edited by James Clinch.  A history of Maidstone Grammar School from 1925 to 1941, through the final Report of headmaster Alfred John Woolgar, MA and from 1942 to 1966 in the Speech Day Reports of headmaster William Arthur Claydon, CBE, MA £10 (+ £2.50 P+P) Read a review of the book Order from Denise Friend at the School

As all Old Maidstonians will remember, WAC, William Arthur Claydon, was Headmaster of the Grammar School at Maidstone from 1941 to 1966. With his wife, Ruth, he retired to Cheltenham where he died on 8 April 1970. In 1997 Mrs Claydon examined all the memorabilia brought to Cheltenham in 1966 and decided what should be kept, discarded or sent back to the School. Amongst the material returned was a packet of Speech Day reports, all original copies carefully maintained with amendments in Mr Claydon's own inimitable hand and all in date order. They form a history of events at the Grammar School and the changes in education both in fact and theory and make an invaluable record over an important twenty-five year period. In addition the packet contained the final report of Mr A.J. Woolgar, Headmaster from 1925 to 1941. He retired in July 1941 after two particularly difficult years. Because of the national situation there was no Speech Day but Mr Woolgar felt that in his last report to the Governors he should summarise the very considerable progress that had been made during his headmastership. This included, of course, the important representation on the Headmasters' Conference in 1936. Clearly Mr Claydon saw the value of this report for it summarises in only a few pages the prelude to his later work. The Old Maidstonian Society considers that these reports from two headmasters add considerably to our general knowledge of the School in the period 1925 to 1966.

The script of the reports has been left totally unchanged apart from the inclusion of Claydon's pencilled additions. Slight modifications have been made to the abbreviations in accordance with modern printing practice, e.g. C.C.F. is shortened to CCF, and the titles of plays and musical items have been italicized. Otherwise everything has been left as it was intended - for spoken delivery on one particular occasion. The reports have been gathered together in date order, separated every five years by copies of the Staff list exactly as printed in the Journal of the time. There are photographs of the School taken before and after the building of the South Block and the laboratories, and photographs of the original War Memorial Library before its removal to the South Block and the conversion of the room to a chemistry laboratory. Mr Claydon's 1965 Report, his last, ended with a single quarto sheet of school exercise paper. This was written in pencil and is copied to form the last page. The book closes with a copy of his obituary in The Times. The history has been compiled electronically from the original papers by James Clinch and the resultant manuscript has been compared with the original by John Caley.